This is the blog of China defense, where professional analysts and serious defense enthusiasts share findings on a rising military power.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Latest military technologies help China's quake rescue

Latest military technologies help China's quake rescue

Xinhua | 2013-4-24 9:11:48 By Agencies

The
latest development of military technologies, including a satellite
navigation system and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), has helped China
carry out more efficient rescue and relief efforts after Saturday's
strong earthquake.

At the field headquarters of the People's
Liberation Army (PLA) Chengdu Military Area Command (MAC) set up for
quake rescue and relief, many important deployments have been made based
on latest pictures of the quake-hit areas taken by satellites, drones
and reconnaissance aircrafts.

"From these high resolution
pictures taken from the air, we can tell where there are landslides,
which roads are blocked and which parts are damaged most," said Zhou
Xiaozhou, head of the rescue headquarters of Chengdu MAC.

The
7.0-magnitude earthquake, which jolted southwest China's Sichuan
Province on Saturday morning, has left 193 dead, 25 missing and 12,211
injured as of 6 a.m. Tuesday.

So far the rescue and relief teams
have responded quickly mainly because the country has established an
aerial intelligence network covering a large area and collecting precise
information in an efficient way, Zhou said.

According to Zhou,
shortly after the quake, the PLA Navy sent out its remote sensing
aircrafts from the base in Sichuan to find out the situation of Lushan
County, the quake epicenter and a remote mountainous region.

In
the meantime, the PLA Air Force mobilized its helicopters and
reconnaissance aircrafts to update the situation of the quake-hit areas
and guide rescuers on land.

To acquire more geographic
information of the quake-hit area and the disaster's damage, the
National Defense Bureau of Science, Technology and Industry initiated an
emergency space mission to collect remote sensing data of the quake-hit
area by using five satellites flying over on Saturday.

In lower
airspace, the quake-relief troops have used UAVs to map small-size or
narrow locations in the quake zone where manned reconnaissance aircraft
could hardly reach.

In most parts of Lushan, the strong quake
damaged communication, transport and power supply facilities, adding
difficulties for the rescue force who had to trek through narrow
mountain roads and under the threat of landslides.

The BeiDou
Navigation Satellite System (BDS) has enabled land rescuers to
communicate among each other and with the headquarters, said Lang Anwu,
chief of staff of an artillery regiment under the 13th Combined Corps of
PLA Army, which has engaged in the rescue mission in Lushan.

The
BDS is China's homegrown satellite navigation system. The country has
already sent 16 satellites to space for the system and the BDS is
expected to cover the globe with a constellation of over 30 satellites
by around 2020.

To help more quake-relief troops, the PLA's
General Staff Headquarters has provided additional 260 sets of the
Beidou system to the quake zones. At least 363 sets of the hand-held
Beidou system have been equipped in the quake zones.

"Each squad
has been equipped with the BDS terminal device so that the headquarters
can locate them at any time and send out orders," Lang said.

In
the early hours after the quake, the transport of injured people and
rescue teams has largely depended on helicopters and planes.

With
China's indigenous Beidou system, the quake-relief headquarters can not
only acquire every rescue unit's real-time location and maneuver but
also contact them even if telecommunication is cut off.

Air
strength has played a vital role in rescue. Three hours after the quake,
a cargo plane took off to ship a national rescue team to the quake-hit
area while four emergency helicopter squads rushed to the worst-hit
areas to locate and set up temporary helipads.

In the first 72
hours since the quake, the air force shipped about 900 people out and
more than 120 tonnes of relief material into the quake zone.

Since
roads to some remote townships and villages were frequently blocked by
sliding rocks, the Air Force started the first airdrop operation on
Monday, delivering food and water for thousands of homeless survivors.

"The
efficiency of rescue and relief work is closely linked to the capacity
of air support," said Cai Suwei, a senior Air Force officer commanding
the rescue work. "We need to further improve the fast response capacity
of the Air Force so as to minimize the casualty in natural disasters."

The military medical aid teams have also adopted new technologies to save more lives salvaged from under the debris.

A
medical team from the Beijing-based PLA's General Hospital has brought a
telemedicine system supported by satellite communications to field
operation shelter vehicles in the quake zones.

Within the first
24 hours after the quake, a 12-year-old girl was saved from Baoxing
County but her condition became critical due to internal bleeding.

Two
surgeons of the medical team consulted on the girl's condition with
more experts of the PLA's General Hospital in Beijing through the
telemedicine system, who guided the surgeons to remove the girl's
ruptured spleen.

One week before the quake, the Chinese
government published a new national defense white paper to illustrate
why and how the country employs its armed forces in a more diversified
way in peace time.

The document stressed that participating in
emergency rescue and disaster relief is one of the most important tasks
for China's armed forces since it is one of the countries most
vulnerable to natural disasters.

China has formed nine
state-level professional emergency-response teams for flood relief,
earthquake rescue and other emergencies, according to the white paper.

A
total of 19,000 soldiers and officers from China's military and armed
police forces have been sent to quake-hit areas in Sichuan since
Saturday.